Buildings as distinctive features

[Marlagram]

This is another my idea to evaluate.
Most of the games have strictly uniform production installations. This is in tune with any industrial/sci-fi setting, but what if some touch of personality will be added to the structure? PFO is about fantasy and the legendary times of hand-made products.
What if at the end of construction server rolls some “quirk table” to slightly add or reduce productivity/production time/production quality value? Nothing global – 1-2-3% of the nominal value at best. Other effects can be: occasional help from brownies with animal handling, gremlin visits for occasional minor machinery breaks, etc. No additional work for artists, no new parameters. This will help with personalization of such structures and preserving sense of wonder. Watermill will be not standard “50 sacks of grain per day asset”, but “Ben's watermill where even worst grain can sometimes become decent flour”. Even better if such “quirk table” will be dependent on the place of construction, alignment and reputation of the owner or even the moon phase.
And yes, you can try to change quirks – by razing to the ground and rebuilding your structure :) That's your choice!
Damn, I'm starting to write such a table for my own TT setting. :)

[Bringslite]

At the start of EE building types will likely be similar except maybe in paint jobs. Later, they may become more diversified.

[cartomancer]

It's a nice idea.

[Bringslite]

I apologize Marlagram. I did not fully read your post to get the gist. Was called away and posted on the fly :)

I like the idea of random favors/mischief or things that increase/decrease production etc... That would be a cool later feature.

[Dario]

I think I'd rather see something like this as a sort of randomized "building event" that happens over the building's lifetime, rather than being decided at creation. So rather than rolling the quirk when the building is constructed, maybe every X unit of time (weekly, daily, etc). Better still if anything that applies a penalty can be corrected with player involvement.

[Deianira]

Dario wrote:

I think I'd rather see something like this as a sort of randomized "building event" that happens over the building's lifetime, rather than being decided at creation. So rather than rolling the quirk when the building is constructed, maybe every X unit of time (weekly, daily, etc). Better still if anything that applies a penalty can be corrected with player involvement.

Agreed. I love the idea - brownies! gremlins! - but would hate to see a settlement get stuck with gremlins' random breakdowns eternally.

I'd also like to see some quirks that are specific to locations (deep-woods settlements might have different quirks than lakeside settlements).

[Marlagram]

Dario wrote:

I think I'd rather see something like this as a sort of randomized "building event" that happens over the building's lifetime, rather than being decided at creation. So rather than rolling the quirk when the building is constructed, maybe every X unit of time (weekly, daily, etc). Better still if anything that applies a penalty can be corrected with player involvement.

If all these events will affect only 1-3% of the time - don't worry, whole town will not be infested with gremlins. Unless, of course, in some distant future we will not have mechanics for starting gremlin escalation in the middle of enemy town :)

I like brownies and gremlins and occasional nixie in my pond, but for EE we must stick to bare skeleton of the game - and this basic will cost devs not much time and effort to implement. Well, but some lovely dryad... ahem, I was carried away :)

[KarlBob]

Neat idea. Someday that could be a neat feature.

When I read the title of your post, Marlagram, my first thought was actually small visual quirks. A crooked beam in this roof, a sagging porch on that house, a more ornate spire on a particular temple. Since those do include artwork, I assume they would be an even farther future idea than what you actually suggested.

[Marlagram]

My fault. :( When I typed the title of this thread I had in my mind features of the everyday game world of our characters. Now I can't redo it. And yes, small visual difference often means extended artwork. So this kind of quirks will be in the even further future.

[Deianira]

Visually distinctive buildings are important! I remember a snarky game we used to play on the DAoC forums: Name That Village. All Hibernian ("Irish" faction) villages had nearly identical layouts of nearly identical grey buildings. You could only figure out which town was which by identifying the NPCs standing around.

[ZenPagan]

What would be a nice touch is when a settlement or kingdom reaches a certain population that they get to design a unique building for placement in their settlement. For example in the real world think the Eiffel tower, Bigben, the Coliseum etc (StoneHenge for Being naturally)

A settlelement that size will probably have someone of sufficient talent to do decent designs which would cut out a huge amount of work for the goblin works artists. Goblinworks could provide some guide lines as to what they need in terms of assets and get final approval before the building can be constructed.

If they make the target population sufficiently high they could easily limit the amount of these buildings and give settlements something to attempt to achieve

[KarlBob]

Bringing an element of Civilization to an MMO with Wonders. Neat.

[Bringslite]

KarlBob wrote:

Bringing an element of Civilization to an MMO with Wonders. Neat.

That is what I was thinking you Ninja poster! :)

[Tertiary]

OP: Rather than needing to raze your building to the ground, I'd rather this system gave you some method of improving the building/tool/etc. or that the effect was stapled to the property plot and not the building. I don't like the idea of completely random generation; it winds up penalizing too many 'casual' players (penalizing players randomly is never a good idea, imho.)

Bringslite wrote:

At the start of EE building types will likely be similar except maybe in paint jobs. Later, they may become more diversified.

You mean with the context that different settlement types will probably have different building themes? Since they plan to phase settlements in after launch, I hope this isn't accurate... I hope there are at least several options for each building type... but, they have said that cosmetics (e.g. furnishing your own homes) are not something intended for the first phases of the game.

Quote:

What would be a nice touch is when a settlement or kingdom reaches a certain population that they get to design a unique building for placement in their settlement. For example in the real world think the Eiffel tower, Bigben, the Coliseum etc (StoneHenge for Being naturally)

...+more stuff...

Personally, I'd rather see wonders more along the lines of community projects where the majority of the server population would have to work together in order to accomplish them similar to how Horizons rocked it out. Those always wound up being awesome and epic accomplishments in the story of the game; it's my opinion that limiting the scope to a single settlement would likewise limit the story.

[ZenPagan]

@Tertiary

If there is a period where the whole server is cooperating then the game is not running right. The game is a game of kingdoms, duchies and the conflicts between them at heart. Any time the political situation is beginning to appear like it may be approaching any form of stability I fully hope that GW will step in to shake things up.

[KarlBob]

Bringslite wrote:

KarlBob wrote:

Bringing an element of Civilization to an MMO with Wonders. Neat.

That is what I was thinking you Ninja poster! :)

Oops, sorry. *disappears in a flash of smoke powder*

[Dario]

ZenPagan wrote:

@Tertiary

If there is a period where the whole server is cooperating then the game is not running right. The game is a game of kingdoms, duchies and the conflicts between them at heart. Any time the political situation is beginning to appear like it may be approaching any form of stability I fully hope that GW will step in to shake things up.

I disagree that peace is a malfunction. There will be periods of peace and periods of conflict. I don't think we need the devs sabotaging players or forcing conflict where there is none. Let gameplay emerge how it will.

[Tertiary]

ZenPagan wrote:

@Tertiary

If there is a period where the whole server is cooperating then the game is not running right. The game is a game of kingdoms, duchies and the conflicts between them at heart. Any time the political situation is beginning to appear like it may be approaching any form of stability I fully hope that GW will step in to shake things up.

I agree with Dario, but I would like to add that just because the server cooperates to create something does not mean they cooperate to control it. Imagine if there were benefits to controlling the Wonder of the Kingdoms that you all got together to help create... and that someone didn't want you to have those benefits? How much more pitched will the battle be when you had a hand in creating this structure that has now been stolen from you?

[ZenPagan]

Well I am not going to argue the point and I suggest we agree to disagree about whether peace is a malfunction.

The reason I suggested these "wonders" was precisely to give a little individual flavour to the large settlements or kingdoms. They were not meant to give any sort of benefit. Just add flavour.

[Nihimon]

ZenPagan wrote:

The reason I suggested these "wonders" was precisely to give a little individual flavour to the large settlements or kingdoms. They were not meant to give any sort of benefit. Just add flavour.

I'm all for allowing Settlements to build functionally useless Monuments/Wonders whose only real purpose is to impress other players.

[OmniChaos]

Ah I guess my temple to Nethys will not have a giant statue with eye beams, just a plain old statue. Well as long as I can still have my golems guarding the place. Wait what I cant have that ether, now your just being mean. ;)

Really I would hope that their is an option to design as we progress. At the start a settlement is going to be a village. Villages are about function so they should look the same. But by the time a settlement becomes a true city it should at that point gain the ability to create things in a artistic way if they so choose. As a metropolis or massive city it should even have the ability to support a wide verity of artistic styles. So while we may not be Absalom we could have at least a handful of styles from Cheliax to Ustalva with in the same settlement. Just a thought.

[Bringslite]

Will settlements be able to grow into cities? Won't they have to be instances to get that large? The individual hex sizes are not very big.

[cartomancer]

So, what about making gremlins an Escalation event? Subtle, you won't necessarily notice it at first, tricky to fight... I think it could be fun, figuring out why your crafters have suddenly dropped production and quality.

[Tertiary]

Bringslite wrote:

Will settlements be able to grow into cities? Won't they have to be instances to get that large? The individual hex sizes are not very big.

Each hex will be roughly 1 sq. mile (640 acres). I imagine a fully developed settlement might spill into surrounding hexes, but I don't imagine it needs to be much bigger than that. I could go into details on why that should be sufficient... but, it's complicated and a lot of work. Suffice to say that the PoI, wilderness harvest locations, etc. should be counted when you consider the 'actual size' of the supporting village and that you should realize these will be villages/hamlets/etc. and not small cities; the NPC Fortresses are the small cities that support them.

A quick search provides THIS LINK which gives a bit more information. There are other articles out there that cover the topic as well. So, I guess my answer to your question would be 'no, they are not supposed to grow into cities.' They may seem that way and even be refered to that way in the metagame; but demographically they will not be that large.

[Dario]

@Tertiary, where are you getting the square mile from? The last I saw (the Over the Hill and Far Away blog) said hexes were going to be between 400 and 1000 meters across, which is quite a bit smaller than a square mile (unless I'm mathfailing today, which is possible).

[Bringslite]

Dario wrote:

@Tertiary, where are you getting the square mile from? The last I saw (the Over the Hill and Far Away blog) said hexes were going to be between 400 and 1000 meters across, which is quite a bit smaller than a square mile (unless I'm mathfailing today, which is possible).

He may be including the surround wilderness hexes? That would make possible for larger than 1 sq mile.

[Tertiary]

1000 meters is ~1 mile. A hex is ~1 square. I am doing some extreme rounding. ;) If it is very much closer to the 400 meter mark then... yeah, I'd have some concerns about how large settlements will be, too. :\

[Dario]

1000m is approximately .62 miles. You weren't kidding about extreme rounding. =P 400m is about a quarter mile.

[Bringslite]

I suppose that you could get a goodly number of buildings into a .62 sq mile area. Depends how many buildings a large settlement will need and the size of those buildings.

Maybe they will end up as sign posts. =P

[Kobold Catgirl]

I am utterly against gremlins in the game on the grounds that I refuse to fight pugwampi. Any merchant who tries to lead me into a pugwampi-infested zone is dead meat, you hear me?!

[Bringslite]

I hear You.

[Tertiary]

Kobold Cleaver wrote:

I am utterly against gremlins in the game on the grounds that I refuse to fight pugwampi. Any merchant who tries to lead me into a pugwampi-infested zone is dead meat, you hear me?!

I refuse to fight stirges. I don't care if I'm epic level... I will run away, and without shame.

EDIT: Oh, and a hex is something like ~.927 squares. So, yeah... very extreme rounding. :) But, extreme is my middle name. Tertiary Extreme Hyperbole. AKA. 'TEH' for the sound people make when they have to deal with me too often. ;)

[Bringslite]

Tertiary wrote:

Kobold Cleaver wrote:

I am utterly against gremlins in the game on the grounds that I refuse to fight pugwampi. Any merchant who tries to lead me into a pugwampi-infested zone is dead meat, you hear me?!

I refuse to fight stirges. I don't care if I'm epic level... I will run away, and without shame.

EDIT: Oh, and a hex is something like ~.927 squares. So, yeah... very extreme rounding. :) But, extreme is my middle name. Tertiary Extreme Hyperbole. AKA. 'TEH' for the sound people make when they have to deal with me too often. ;)

I operate at "caveman" level math. Is that because of all the corners?

[Tertiary]

That Link I Linked wrote:

Hexes: It may be important for some GMs using this article to know how much land is in a hexagonal area! To determine the area of a hex, multiply its width by 0.9306049, and square the result. Thus, if your game-map has hexes 30 miles across, each hex represents about 780 square miles (and it's a convenient size for travel-times, since 30 miles is a good rule of thumb for a day's road travel on foot or horseback).

I may have misquoted. I am at a similar level of math. Cool Story: when I was doing my college math placement test many years ago (after four years of intervening military service) I forgot Order of Operations. Needless to say, I failed that test... a lot.

[Deianira]

Bringslite wrote:

I suppose that you could get a goodly number of buildings into a .62 sq mile area. Depends how many buildings a large settlement will need and the size of those buildings.

Maybe they will end up as sign posts. =P

That's actually a pretty good size for a medieval town. I spent a week in Lucca, Italy last year, and its historic walled center is about half a square mile. (For the math nuts, the walls are about 4000 meters in total length and form a rough oval.). There are a LOT of buildings within the walls - mostly narrow streets with numerous small piazzas and one large piazza on what used to be a Roman amphitheatre.

And for comparison, the City of London is just over a square mile in area.

[KarlBob]

Building city walls was expensive and time-consuming. Some European cities shelled out the money for concentric rings of walls as they grew, but others just built more and more densely within the existing walls. Some cities built upward as much as outward.